Doctor and Patient or Provider and Consumer?

We wince when journalists are called “content providers,” so we sympathize with a perspective piece in the current New England Journal of Medicine bemoaning “the new language of medicine.”

The two physician-authors, Pamela Hartzband and Jerome Groopman, do not wish to be called “providers,” thankyouverymuch. Nor do they want their patients to be called “customers” or “consumers.” Instead they prefer specific job titles: doctors, nurses, physical therapists …